OBJECTIVE THREE: CHALLENGES IN ENSURING THE SAFETY OF CONSTRUCTION WORKERS ON THE CONSTRUCTION SITES CONSTRUCTION WORKERS ON THE CONSTRUCTION SITES

Exploratory factor analysis was used to examine the challenges in ensuring the safety of construction workers on construction sites. Twenty (20) challenges identified from the literature were explored using component principal analysis (CPA), otherwise called factor analysis. In the analysis, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) and Bartlett‟s test of sphericity shows good factorability features as shown in Table 6.8.The Bartlett‟s test of sphericity gave a chi-square value of 1752.874 at 780 degrees of freedom, significant at a 5% confidence level. This, therefore, suggests correlation among the chosen factors (challenges in ensuring the safety of construction workers) and supportive criterion for factorability.

Table 6.8: KMO and Bartlett’s test

Kaiser-Meyer-Olkinmeasure of sampling adequacy 0.69 Bartlett‟s test of sphericity:

Approx. chi-square 1752.874

Degree of freedom 780

Significant level 0.000

CPA indicated three (3) components (out of 20 possible components) with an eigenvalue of at least one (1) as shown in Table 6.9. The first components have an eigenvalue of 15.374 while

83 the third component has 2.278; these represent the variation each of the linear components can explain. The percentage of variance explained by each of these components is given in the third column while their cumulative is in the fourth column. The first component explained the highest variation (38.435%) while the last explained 5.696%. Altogether, the variables explain 51.239% variation by their linear components.

Table 6.9: Total variance explained before rotation Component Initial Eigenvalues

Total Percent of Variance Cumulative Percentage of Variance

1 15.374 38.435 38.435

2 2.843 7.108 45.543

3 2.278 5.696 51.239

By the varimax rotation method, twenty factors (20) factors loaded differently on three (3) components which form the basis for significant challenges encountered in ensuring the safety of construction workers as reported in Table 6.10:

Table 6.10: Rotated component matrix

Component

1 2 3

Shortage of protective equipment .767

Wrong use of protective equipment .761

Absence of prescribed health and safety regulations .707 Low priority given to safety of construction workers by contractors .677

Negligence of health and safety department .673

Absence of prescribed health and safety regulations for the construction industry .666

Perceiving health and safety as luxury .656

Poor funding .632

Construction workers‟ low awareness of health and safety requirements .724 Contractors‟ low awareness of health and safety requirements .683

Use of hazardous materials on construction site .666

Poor communication between the safety personnel and construction workers .643

Theft of safety equipment .641

Underpayment of the safety personnel .636

Failure to see safety practices as an integral part of project success .627

84

Low compliance with health and regulations by the construction workers .722 Failure to include the safety personnel in the design of the building .665 Construction paying more concern to their work target than safety requirements .662

Failure to report accident to appropriate authority .631

Poor enforcement of health and safety regulations .562

The items are loaded at different degrees, but those with high loading are considered. On the first component, „shortage of protective equipment‟ and „wrong use of protective equipment‟

were highly loaded while on the second component, „construction workers‟ low awareness of safety requirements‟ and „low contractors‟ awareness of health and safety requirements‟

are highly loaded. On the other hand, „low compliance with health regulations‟ and „failure to include the safety personnel in the design of the building‟ are the highest loading factors in the third component.

The highest items on the same component suggest the factors‟ name be given to such components.In line with the three components obtained in the analysis are identified as 1) absence of protective equipment, 2) low awareness of OHS by construction professionals, and 3) low compliance to health and safety regulations. These are the three categories of factors extracted from the CPA which significantly hinder the health and safety of construction professionals.

6.8 OBJECTIVE FOUR: To determine the level of compliance between indigenous and foreign construction firms towards OHS requirements.

The study deployed the Mann-Whitney U test, that is a non-parametric alternative of the independent T-test to investigate the difference between indigenous and foreign construction firms on the level of compliance with OHS requirements. The result of the analysis is presented in Table 6.11.

85 The findings from table 6.11were produced by merging the safety provisions in table 6.6 and computing them into a dummy variable in SPSS while the respondents‟ response on the category (Indigenous and Foreign) of their organizationwas used as the test variable.

Table 6.11: Mann-Whitney U test for significant difference between foreign and indigenous construction firm on OHS

Compliance to health and safety

Mann-Whitney U 314.500

Wilcoxon W 749.500

Z -1.653

Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) 0.008

Remark Sig.

From Table 6.10, at a 0.05 level of significance and since p > 0.05, a statistically significant difference was found between the compliance level to health and safety regulations among indigenous and foreign construction firms. This suggests that the level of compliance with health and safety requirements is not the same among indigenous and foreign construction firms.

6.9 CHAPTER SUMMARY

This chapter shows the comprehensive data collated from various respondents in the construction industry in Lagos State, Nigeria. It also narrates the findings from the respondents, namely the rate of compliance and the challenges facing construction workers and outlined the prevalent forms of accident on construction sites. It further compared the indigenous and foreign construction firms by examining how they adhere to issues regarding OHS at their workplace and listed the challenges that hinder the compliance rate in the construction industry.

86 CHAPTER SEVEN